The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain

Chapter 27

THE adventure of the day mightily tormented Tom’s dreams that night. Four times he had his hands on
that rich treasure and four times it wasted to nothingness in his fingers as sleep forsook him and wakefulness brought
back the hard reality of his misfortune. As he lay in the early morning recalling the incidents of his great adventure,
he noticed that they seemed curiously subdued and far away — somewhat as if they had happened in another world, or in a
time long gone by. Then it occurred to him that the great adventure itself must be a dream! There was one very strong
argument in favor of this idea — namely, that the quantity of coin he had seen was too vast to be real. He had never
seen as much as fifty dollars in one mass before, and he was like all boys of his age and station in life, in that he
imagined that all references to “hundreds” and “thousands” were mere fanciful forms of speech, and that no such sums
really existed in the world. He never had supposed for a moment that so large a sum as a hundred dollars was to be
found in actual money in any one’s possession. If his notions of hidden treasure had been analyzed, they would have
been found to consist of a handful of real dimes and a bushel of vague, splendid, ungraspable dollars.

But the incidents of his adventure grew sensibly sharper and clearer under the attrition of thinking them over, and
so he presently found himself leaning to the impression that the thing might not have been a dream, after all. This
uncertainty must be swept away. He would snatch a hurried breakfast and go and find Huck. Huck was sitting on the
gunwale of a flatboat, listlessly dangling his feet in the water and looking very melancholy. Tom concluded to let Huck
lead up to the subject. If he did not do it, then the adventure would be proved to have been only a dream.

“Hello, Huck!”

“Hello, yourself.”

Silence, for a minute.

“Tom, if we’d ’a’ left the blame tools at the dead tree, we’d ’a’ got the money. Oh, ain’t it awful!”

“’Tain’t a dream, then, ’tain’t a dream! Somehow I most wish it was. Dog’d if I don’t, Huck.”

“What ain’t a dream?”

“Oh, that thing yesterday. I been half thinking it was.”

“Dream! If them stairs hadn’t broke down you’d ’a’ seen how much dream it was! I’ve had dreams enough all night —
with that patch-eyed Spanish devil going for me all through ’em — rot him!”

“No, not rot him. FIND him! Track the money!”

“Tom, we’ll never find him. A feller don’t have only one chance for such a pile — and that one’s lost. I’d feel
mighty shaky if I was to see him, anyway.”

“Well, so’d I; but I’d like to see him, anyway — and track him out — to his Number Two.”

“Number Two — yes, that’s it. I been thinking ’bout that. But I can’t make nothing out of it. What do you reckon it
is?”

“Goody! . . . No, Tom, that ain’t it. If it is, it ain’t in this one-horse town. They ain’t no numbers
here.”

“Well, that’s so. Lemme think a minute. Here — it’s the number of a room — in a tavern, you know!”

“Oh, that’s the trick! They ain’t only two taverns. We can find out quick.”

“You stay here, Huck, till I come.”

Tom was off at once. He did not care to have Huck’s company in public places. He was gone half an hour. He found
that in the best tavern, No. 2 had long been occupied by a young lawyer, and was still so occupied. In the less
ostentatious house, No. 2 was a mystery. The tavern-keeper’s young son said it was kept locked all the time, and he
never saw anybody go into it or come out of it except at night; he did not know any particular reason for this state of
things; had had some little curiosity, but it was rather feeble; had made the most of the mystery by entertaining
himself with the idea that that room was “ha’nted”; had noticed that there was a light in there the night before.

“That’s what I’ve found out, Huck. I reckon that’s the very No. 2 we’re after.”

“I reckon it is, Tom. Now what you going to do?”

“Lemme think.”

Tom thought a long time. Then he said:

“I’ll tell you. The back door of that No. 2 is the door that comes out into that little close alley between the
tavern and the old rattle trap of a brick store. Now you get hold of all the door-keys you can find, and I’ll nip all
of auntie’s, and the first dark night we’ll go there and try ’em. And mind you, keep a lookout for Injun Joe, because
he said he was going to drop into town and spy around once more for a chance to get his revenge. If you see him, you
just follow him; and if he don’t go to that No. 2, that ain’t the place.”

“Lordy, I don’t want to foller him by myself!”

“Why, it’ll be night, sure. He mightn’t ever see you — and if he did, maybe he’d never think anything.”